Foundation characteristics of edible Musa triploids revealed from allelic distribution of SSR markers

Abstract

Background and AimsThe production of triploid banana and plantain (Musa spp.) cultivars with improved characteristics (e.g. greater disease resistance or higher yield), while still preserving the main features of current popular cultivars (e.g. taste and cooking quality), remains a major challenge for Musa breeders. In this regard, breeders require a sound knowledge of the lineage of the current sterile triploid cultivars, to select diploid parents that are able to transmit desirable traits, together with a breeding strategy ensuring final triploidization and sterility. Highly polymorphic single sequence repeats (SSRs) are valuable markers for investigating phylogenetic relationships.MethodsHere, the allelic distribution of each of 22 SSR loci across 561 Musa accessions is analysed.Key Results and ConclusionsWe determine the closest diploid progenitors of the triploid ‘Cavendish’ and ‘Gros Michel’ subgroups, valuable information for breeding programmes. Nevertheless, in establishing the likely monoclonal origin of the main edible triploid banana subgroups (i.e. ‘Cavendish’, ‘Plantain’ and ‘Mutika-Lujugira’), we postulated that the huge phenotypic diversity observed within these subgroups did not result from gamete recombination, but rather from epigenetic regulations. This emphasizes the need to investigate the regulatory mechanisms of genome expression on a unique model in the plant kingdom. We also propose experimental standards to compare additional and independent genotyping data for reference.

Molecular and cytological characterization of the global Musa germplasm collection provides insights into the treasure of banana diversity

“…zebrina, and African ''AAA Mutika-Lujugira block'' within the cluster X supports the previous reports on the contribution of zebrina and banksii subspecies to the formation of this triploid subgroup (Carreel et al 2002;Boonruangrod et al 2008;Risterucci et al 2009;Hippolyte et al 2012) and based on our results, the zebrina contribution is predominant. The position of the singletons ssp.…”

“…Hippolyte et al 2012;de Jesus et al 2013), the intraspecific diversity of M. balbisiana is low compared to M. acuminata. This is reflected in our work by clustering all balbisiana accessions in a single coherent block (Fig.…”

The Original Banana Split: Multi-disciplinary implications of the generation of African and Pacific Plantains in Island Southeast Asia

“…The entire P subgroup consists of three types: French plantains with a complete male inflorescence, and the false-horn and horn plantains with respectively a partially or a completely aborted male inflorescence. The three types are molecularly indistinguishable, even though they exhibit such spectacular phenotypic differences (Hippolyte et al 2012). These differences are probably due to somatic mutations, with the French Plantains as the original type.…”

Suitability of existing Musa morphological descriptors to characterize East African highland ‘matooke’ bananas

“…Their ancestors are Musa acuminata Colla denoted as AA and Musa balbisiana Colla (BB). The natural hybridization between and within M. acuminata and M. balbisiana resulted in several cultivars with different genomes and ploidy levels (Hippolyte et al 2012). The possible genomic groups for bananas include; AA, BB, AB, AAA, AAB, ABB AABB, AAAB and ABBB (Creste et al 2003).…”